Persian Rug

When the shah stood with Jimmy Carter on the South Lawn of the White House for the welcoming ceremony for his state visit on November 15, 1977, mounted police in the distance were trying to contain a group of anti-shah demonstrators outside the White House grounds. Wafts of tear gas reached the South Lawn and the shah, the president, their wives, and other dignitaries found themselves mopping or rubbing their eyes to contain the tears. Carter saw it as an augury of the hostage crisis to come: “The tear gas had created the semblance of grief. Almost two years later, and for 14 months afterward, there would be real grief in our country because of Iran.”

But the visit was an augury for a deeper reason — because what the president said to the shah during the visit reflected the contradictions in U.S. policy that would help bring that crisis about. In the public greeting on the South Lawn, Carter repeated the strong statements of U.S. solidarity with the shah and his country that every U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt had expressed. Once they repaired safely inside, after a larger meeting in the Cabinet Room, Carter took the shah aside to a small private room near the Oval Office and expressed his concerns about human rights in Iran; he urged the shah to consider reaching out to dissident groups and “easing off” on police actions against them. This kind of pressure from an American president on his internal policies was new to the shah; he responded politely but firmly that he would enforce his country’s laws.